用设计推动变革：TrashCAN项目的诞生-伦敦艺术大学广州官网

用设计推动变革：TrashCAN项目的诞生

伦敦艺术大学广州招生代表处 | 2021-06-10

TrashCAN是一个由英国公共合作实验室（Public Collaboration Lab, PCL）的Adam Thorpe教授倡导，伦敦艺术大学中央圣马丁产品设计本科（BA Product Design）在读学生与萨默斯镇青年俱乐部的年轻人共同进行的可持续性产品创业项目。Thorpe教授提出了当地青年俱乐部与当地企业合作的可行性，并设想了实施项目的人员、地点和物料，萨默斯镇青年俱乐部和一些CSM产品设计本科的学生们把计划付诸实践。

萨默斯镇青年俱乐部以前就和CSM合作过电影相关的项目，青年领袖Jamie King认为这次的项目能对年轻人产生巨大的影响，能挑战他们的惯常的想法，思考另一种商业的方式。参与项目的CSM产品设计本科学生也对这个项目有着高度评价。大三学生Ruth Styan以前就参加过类似的项目，她认为设计师需要成为变革的推动者，用设计对社会产生影响。

TrashCAN on social media

因此，从2020年初，Ruth Styan和她的同学们就在青年俱乐部为TrashCAN项目工作。他们用一个游戏作为开启设计的大门，用一套卡片、骰子和棍子把不同的材料、工艺和环境进行随机组合来挑战思维，比如废玻璃瓶+烧制+家居环境=？

TrashCAN cards

正当项目进行正酣时，全国性的封锁到来了，一切都需要他们迅速做出改变。他们克服了远程工作带来的困难，最终的成果也让Thorpe教授印象深刻。随着参与项目的学生们毕业，TrashCAN进入了一个新阶段，它已经发展成为一个开源的在线平台，共享废弃材料的重复利用方法和指南。

Work in progress, TrashCAN

新闻原文：

Igniting sustainable entrepreneurship, this project connects young people from Somers Town Youth Club with students studying BA Product Design.

When the TrashCAN project came along it was a no-brainer. Our first project with Central Saint Martins was about film which is something young people really understand. But product design? It would really challenge them and open their eyes to another way of thinking about businesses and entrepreneurship.

— Jamie King, Youth Leader at Somers Town Youth Club

Leading the project, Professor Adam Thorpe of Public Collaboration Lab (PCL) mapped out the people, places and materials that could be creatively combined. He identified possible mutual benefits of connecting the young people at the local youth centre to the new Buck Street Market offering stalls for local enterprise and sustainable products (with proceeds shared between the Youth Club and the young people). The MAKE space and a group of BA Product Design students could be the conduit, helping bring new products into being.

"We connect people and place to resources. We co-design with our partners to create a project that works for all the different people involved in it."

Adam Thorpe, PCL

Several of the third-year students involved had already worked on collaborative and socially engaged projects. Ruth Styan, for example, had participated in Design Against Crime's Makeright programme introducing design skills to prison education:

I love what DAC and PCL stand for. As a designer, I don't think we need a new sofa; I think we need to be the face of change, putting our brains together to make an impact. If we can do that through design then I'm all for it.

— Ruth Styan, BA Product Design student

So, in early 2020, Styan and her fellow students began spending time at the youth centre. The aim was to create a connection before introducing MAKE, a making space at the Story Garden that most had never visited before. "I grew up in Camden so it's not a strange environment for me," Ruth says, "I know that kids might not be engaged from the start (when I was a kid, I would tell my mum that I was going to the youth centre… I was not going to the youth centre). So, I remember the dynamic… A lot of the challenges we faced were how to get the kids engaged in the first place."

With guidance from Youth Leaders, Jamie King and Shazna Ahmed, the group devised games as a gateway into design. They created a pack of cards, dice and grab stick through which one could easily create random combinations of material, process and context as a speed design challenge. For example, waste glass bottles + kiln + domestic product = ?.

Just as the groups were getting to know and trust each other, coronavirus lockdown arrived. Everything had to change fast. Though physical making had been central to the project, TrashCAN became digital. The student group translated their games onto an Instagram account, connected to the existing social platforms of the Youth Club. They would challenge their audience to design something in 24 hours using a specific combination of material, process and product type. Submitted designs stretched from efficient food slicers to discourage waste to Shakespearean dog collar ruffs made from upcycled denim.

Thorpe was impressed how the students managed to transform the project. "There was a huge amount of designing," he says, "In these projects they have to 'design to discover', 'design to share', 'design to co-create'. But here they had to do it remotely, drawing on digital tools, working on new platforms, there was a huge amount of learning for the students and for ourselves."

When lockdown was lifted and restrictions allowed, members of the Youth Club arrived at MAKE to put some of their ideas into practice. Products like an indoor hanging planter and a self-assembly smartphone project came out of those collective workshops.

With the students now graduated, TrashCAN moves into a new phase. Through the twists and turns that the project had to take, it has developed into an open-source online resource sharing how-to films and guides for designing with discarded materials. While MAKE is open regularly for members of the Youth Centre, this digital presence offers the learnings and assets from TrashCAN to anyone, inspiring others to get designing and making.

This project was something completely new to the young people we work with. They have a lot of ideas but often don't have opportunities to bring those ideas to life. Having the MAKE space is the chance to do that.

— Jamie King, Youth Leader at Somers Town Youth Club

TrashCAN is a collaboration between Somers Town Community Association, MAKE and Public Collaboration Lab. The partners continue to explore ways in which the project might be further rolled out in the local area.